Monday, September 20, 2010

NEW PROJECT - Nano Grants

The question about how a small amount of money – say $20 – can be used most effectively comes into many of our minds as we hear about and see poverty. There have been a number of ways people have tried to go about this, hand out money, hand out items, sponsor a child to go to school, buy a small animal for someone etc. When you are interacting with people who you want to benefit from your donations directly, it makes this process much more transparent and support ends up in the hands of those with the luck to meet a generous person. If you’ve done this before and want to share how you gave money, how it was used and your thoughts on it now, please share them!

What if we could do this from afar with similar effects? We're going to test NanoGrants - a quicker, smaller version of MicroGrants - by offering $50 to $200 to communities who engage in a discussion with us about their situation, problems, solutions and available resources. Similarly to a MicroGrant, the group would have to write a short proposal of how they will use the money and ensure that the group will benefit from it.

Nano-Grants already in the works:

Three men in Karambe are writing a proposal to start a community goat project. They will care for the goats and when they give birth to new goats, they will give it to a community leader who will distribute it to someone who is in high need of an animal.

A group of HIV positive women in Wanteete have organized in hopes to gain better access to ARV’s. Currently they don’t have enough money to pay for them. They are writing a proposal to start a pig project to generate income that they can use to pay for medicine. They are using a mere $50 to kick off the project by buying piglets.